.•°.* Book Highlight ~ Return & Abide by Skye Malone *.°•.

For Chloe, the ocean was supposed to mean safety and for a time, it almost did. She overcame the Sylphaen’s drugs. She discovered an unforeseen attraction to Zeke, one that he shares for her. A life underwater seemed possible, until she learned that nothing was as it appeared.

After an unspeakable betrayal shattered everything she thought she knew about Zeke’s world, she and Zeke have fled the ocean for the one place Chloe never expected to want to go.

Home.

But the challenge of living as a mermaid over a thousand miles from the ocean isn’t the only problem facing her. Home has changed. Enemies are waiting, ones she never saw coming. Her little Kansas town is full of surprises.

Earl’s words filtered through the cotton stuffing in my head, barely making sense.

“Yeah, well, seemed fitting.” He paused. “Listen, Richard, I called you as a courtesy, on account of how you said one got away from you yesterday. But it took me an hour after the girl collapsed to get the boy to finally conk out, and with that damn scum-sucker metabolism of theirs, you know I can’t promise either of ‘em will be down for long. You and your boys want any part of this, you better hurry up and get here.”

Alarm struggled through me, weighed down by an exhaustion that wanted to smother my mind back into sleep. Scum-sucker? He…

“Hang on,” Earl said as though interrupting someone. “One of them ain’t breathing the same as they were.”

My heart began to pound harder while I fought to open my eyes. Breathing? He sounded so far away. How could he hear anyone breathing?

Footsteps clunked on the hardwood floor. Light pierced the blackness around me as I managed to lift my eyelids. I was on the bed, facing the doorway. In the window seat, Zeke was slumped, his head resting on the wall. The room was dark around us, though the hall light was on.

Earl came to the door. In one hand, he held a phone to his ear, and at the sight of me, he made an angry noise.

“What’d I tell you? The girl’s awake.”

He dropped the phone onto the window seat as he strode toward me, and all my dull commands to my muscles couldn’t make my body move. Striding past me, he retrieved something from the dresser and then returned with a sports bottle in his hand.

I tried to pull away, but he just reached down and grabbed my head from behind, lifting it toward him. With his teeth, he popped open the top of the bottle and then shoved it into my mouth.

Bitter-tasting liquid flooded my throat. I choked, the drink spewing from my lips, but he just dropped the bottle and clamped an enormous hand over the lower half of my face.

“Swallow,” he ordered.

I stared up at him. His grip tightened on my hair, tugging at my scalp.

Life in her underwater home of Nyciena has always been fun and games to Ina Ociras, until now. Her brothers are missing. Her father is gone. The adventurous party girl is fighting just to keep her family from falling apart, all while avoiding Egan, the guy who committed the one crime she can’t possibly forgive.

But when she receives a message that changes everything, Ina suddenly finds herself embroiled in a conspiracy more horrifying than she could have imagined. One that strikes at the heart of her kingdom, and one that could destroy her family once and for all.

~An Awakened Fate Novella which follows Return, Book Three of the Awakened Fate Series~

The guards took up positions beside me when I left the room and headed for the main hall.

“Princess.”

I tried not to swear, knowing anyone who overheard would only use it as gossip about my current mental state.

But a slew of choice words presented themselves.

This wasn’t fair, I told the universe silently. Not even a little bit.

I glanced back to see Egan swimming down the hall toward me. With his silver scales, dark eyes, and hair so light it seemed like snow even though he was only a year older than me, he looked like a sculptor’s dream, and just as incredible as ever.

It only made me hate him a little bit more. Killing that damn flutter in my stomach would’ve been so much easier if he was ugly.

Skye Malone is a fantasy and paranormal romance author, which means she spends most of her time not-quite-convinced that the magical things she imagines couldn't actually exist. A Midwestern girl who migrated to the Pacific Northwest, she dreams someday of travelling the world – though in the meantime she’ll take any story that whisks her off to a place where the fantastic lives inside the everyday. She loves strong and passionate characters, complex villains, and satisfying endings that stay with you long after the book is done. An inveterate writer, she can’t go a day without getting her hands on a keyboard, and can usually be found typing away while she listens to all the adventures unfolding in her head.

Skye also writes YA urban fantasy as Megan Joel Peterson and is the author of The Children and the Blood series.